German Published Patent Application No. 199 28 477 describes a method and a device for controlling a drive unit of a vehicle. In that document, starting from the comparison of a first acceleration variable, which is calculated at least starting from the operating state of the drive unit, and a second acceleration variable, an error is detected in the field of fuel metering. The second acceleration variable is recorded using an acceleration sensor which directly detects the vehicle acceleration.
Furthermore, German Published Patent Application No. 103 15 410 describes a method and a device in which, starting from the desired torque and the actual torque of the internal combustion engine that is calculated starting from the operating state of the internal combustion engine, errors are detected.